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GNS / Big Model Open House
Hi.
I know that a fair share of RPG theory interested folks read this blog.
I'd like to test my own understanding of GNS / Big Model.
So:
I will answer any questions about the Big Model or GNS that you have, if you ask them in response to this post or in a private e-mail to me.
It would help if you would first read the essays here and here. These other ones won't hurt. Just the top part of the last two is fine.
a few ground rules:
1) I'm going to try to explain a theoretical model to you. I don't want to argue whether it is right or wrong. You can come to your own conclusions about that. If you post, I will assume that you are trying to understand the model, no more, no less.
1a) If you want to destroy the model, may I suggest that understanding it is a good first step?
1b) So no "that's stupid," stupid though it may be. "That doesn't make sense, please explain it a different way" is fine.
2) I will not diagnose GNS goals of games I've never played. I will not discuss any theory applying to LARPs, because they are complicated. I will not discuss books, movies, plays, improv theatre, ballet, or any other artform in the context of GNS, because doing so is stupid. I will discuss games which I have played, as examples, but pretty much only at the request of the GM who ran said game.
2a) If you ask about the GNS of your game, do not take a diagnosis that isn't what you want it to be to be an insult. It isn't.
3) I may add ground rules as things progress.
I know that a fair share of RPG theory interested folks read this blog.
I'd like to test my own understanding of GNS / Big Model.
So:
I will answer any questions about the Big Model or GNS that you have, if you ask them in response to this post or in a private e-mail to me.
It would help if you would first read the essays here and here. These other ones won't hurt. Just the top part of the last two is fine.
a few ground rules:
1) I'm going to try to explain a theoretical model to you. I don't want to argue whether it is right or wrong. You can come to your own conclusions about that. If you post, I will assume that you are trying to understand the model, no more, no less.
1a) If you want to destroy the model, may I suggest that understanding it is a good first step?
1b) So no "that's stupid," stupid though it may be. "That doesn't make sense, please explain it a different way" is fine.
2) I will not diagnose GNS goals of games I've never played. I will not discuss any theory applying to LARPs, because they are complicated. I will not discuss books, movies, plays, improv theatre, ballet, or any other artform in the context of GNS, because doing so is stupid. I will discuss games which I have played, as examples, but pretty much only at the request of the GM who ran said game.
2a) If you ask about the GNS of your game, do not take a diagnosis that isn't what you want it to be to be an insult. It isn't.
3) I may add ground rules as things progress.
no subject
no subject
Let us imagine that you are playing a character in the way that you describe.
First of all, let's look at "set of circumstances:"
Can I call this "situation" instead?
Who is acting to generate the situations that the character finds himself in? The GM? You, the player? Your fellow players?
Do the situations challenge who he is as a character, forcing him (and you his player) to re-evalute him or do they largely confirm what has already been established? For instance, if you are playing a heartless killer character, do you feel okay with playing the scene where he helps save a little girl's life? Or do you play it, by necessity, as a cold-hearted killer?
Do you purposefully make characters that are near breaking points / turning points, to engender the above sort of situations?
Secondly, let's talk about decisions.
When you make a decision, is it entirely based on "what the character would do?" or are there other considerations.
Imagine a situation where your character could, reasonably, choose to go off and be a monk for 20 years or stay with the group of PCs and keep exploring the unknown. Both of these options are reasonable. Which one do you choose and why?
Let's say, now, that the the monk option makes slightly more sense in the character's headspace, but that the PC group will be vastly weakened without your part in it. Which would you choose and why?
Let's say, now, that the monk option makes slightly more sense in the character's headspace, but you know that if you stay with the group for one more session, you will run into your long-lost father and deal with those issues. Which would you choose and why?
Let's start there.
yrs--
--Ben
no subject
The situations force one to "fill-in blanks" in the character. Ie, one starts out with a set of precepts that formulate the character and some background where those precepts come from. If situation that comes up has already been handled by me in my head, then I follow the pre-arranged character concept. Otherwise, I attempt to figure out what the character would do in that situation from what I already know. If there is not enough info, I attempt to come up with missing pieces that would not make previous actions inconsistent.
I make characters that I consider interesting. This usually does not involve being very close to a breaking/turning point.
Decisions:
Almost entirely based on what the character would do.
If both of those are viable, but the later lets me stay with the character longer and explore him longer (by putting him in more situations), then I will probably be likely to stick with the second option.
This would depend on how the situation originated. If the source of the situation is me, then it is really my fault for making a character who is likely to abandon his group in a game where this act would make the other players have a lot less fun in their game. I would check whether out of game it was okay for me to leave and roll up a new character, or if that option was not available, I would stay and revise the character idea to explore why one would choose the less likely option and see how that could still be a reasonably consistent character.
I feel out of game knowledge should not impact in-game decisions like that. I would prefer to not know that at all though.
no subject
I'd like you to picture this scenario as one of actual play, with other players who are your friends.
You are playing a character who it has been previously established is a cold blooded killer. You have been hired to kill a woman who, upon investigation, turns out to actually be a little girl. This is the character of another PC.
My question is not "do you kill her or not" but this: Do you regard "do you kill her or not" to be a valid question?
yrs--
--Ben
no subject
Essentially you are introducing two questions in one here and I am going to reply as such:
1) Woman is actually a little girl
Answer - depends on his motivations for being a killer. Depends on his loyalty to the boss/etc. Frankly it can depend on how well the little girl pleads her case. To summarize - there are always situational factors that prevent one from making blanket statements about a character's actions.
2) Person who is going to be killed is another PC
Answer - part of any roleplaying game is having fun. If I feel that the other PC would be completely devastated out of game by this character dying (which is a problem all in itself) regardless of how interesting/exciting/deep the roleplaying during the encounter will be, I might think of a way to keep them alive that is character consistent. I might also ask the PC out of game first, just to make sure things are clear. That is the only effect this being another PC has on the situation (in addition to my responces to the "leaving the party" question).
To answer concisely, yes it is a valid question.
no subject
My diagnosis here is that you are approaching most of the games you are in with a Simulationist creative agenda, focusing on exploration of character, focusing on a cause-and-effect psychological realism. Your main technique towards this is a total disregard for any system in favor of trance-state immersion. The one exception to this is that you don't want to cripple other PCs. I imagine that this is one of the main sources of frustration in your role-playing, the others being, possibly, that there is too often "nothing to do" and that other players are power-gaming or otherwise making decisions that don't seem to jive with their character profile. I imagine that you deal with these frustrations by either avoiding these players in play or by rationalizing their actions somehow.
Fair enough?
yrs--
--Ben
no subject
I have a similar, though not exactly the same, query to russiandude's, and I'd like to answer your questions as well and see if you can help pinpoint where I might fit in. It is hard for me to differentiate character-exploring simulationist from actor-stance-only narrativist.
My basic interest is in exploring character development by immersing in a character who differs from myself and them experiencing that character change through the impact of outside events and relationships with other characters. I particularly tend to enjoy either starting with a seriously flawed character and gradually working them into integration/redemption, or having a character flaw/break down over time through outside pressures and then be redeemed.
I don't know if you would ask me the same questions, but I find them interesting, so I'm going to answer them.
Who is acting to generate the situations that the character finds himself in?
For situations established at the time I start playing the character: me. For situations that come into play later: primarily outside forces: the GM, other characters. The fact that a situation is of concern or problematic is likely to be because of something about the character I created. It may be apt to say that some situations are generated from outside, but others are merely triggered. For a situation created later in the game, if my character was from the get-go able and willing to create this situation themself, why are they only doing so now?
Do the situations challenge who he is as a character, forcing him (and you his player) to re-evalute him or do they largely confirm what has already been established?
First I want to establish who the character is by confirming in play what I have already designed. Then I want the situation to challenge who he is as a character, forcing evolution rather than after-the-fact rewriting.
Do you purposefully make characters that are near breaking points / turning points
Not usually right on the point, because I need the brief time to establish the character first; but I try to make characters with potential break/turn points in their future (sometimes near future), without envisioning necessarily how that would go or turn out. It feels like it is hard to believe in the outcome if I haven't played up to it adequately, but I think I'd have a better time if I made characters initially who were in a less stable state.
no subject
I'm going to reply to the rest of your post, but I thought that this was a super-important question, and I wanted to draw it out.
Character-focused simulationism is interested in constructing a character -- personality, beliefs, and all -- and having that character continue to do her thing in relation to the environment around her. Situations which challenge the character as a character, force change or critical analysis of the character's belief, or make the player look at the character as, in fact, a hollow-shell fictional construct, will make a player who is focusing on character through a simulationist lens frustrated and angry -- the situation (usually the GM) is assaulting their character!
At the end of a game with a character-focused Simulationist creative agenda, the players will step back and say "Boy, I really know this person. I have an understanding of her."
Character focused, largely actor stance narrativism, is a totally different ball game. The actor stance narrativist demands situations like I described above. Integrity of "character-concept" is utterly meaningless -- challenges to the character's integrity are great opportunity's to make a premise statement. If a narrativist player is not met with critical challenges to their character, they will be frustrated, and unfulfilled.
At the end of a game with a Narrativist creative agenda (no matter what stances are involved), the players will step back and say "Boy, I've really thought about these tricky human issues. I have a better understanding of them." The character, even in actor-stance play, is a vehicle towards that ultimate goal, not goal unto itself.
Both Narrativists and Simulationists can employ in-character decision making (Actor stance) as a useful technique. At the end of the day, the Simulationist is going to have constructed a character simulcrum. A narrativist will have poked at a premise.
Does that make sense to you?
yrs--
--Ben
no subject
If "having that character continue to do her thing in relation to the environment around her" includes continuing to evolve and be affected internally, that covers what I'm interested in. I would be irritated by something/someone who seemed to try to negate rather than influence the character -- i.e. someone who said 'it's impossible for your character to be the way they are.' The question, to me, is whether that forced change or critical analysis of the character's belief can be addressed through the character's perspective. I'm not interested in trying to insist a character's belief's are right and then be challenged on an out of game level to defend or change them -- I'm more interested in having them be 'wrong' from my outside perspective and seeing where they lead and how they mutate.
I know my character construction and presentation cannot be perfect, so I would be annoyed if someone picked at it as a hollow-shell fictional construct. I want them to accept that I'm trying to make this a 'consistent' person and address certain issues with them, and cut some slack as necessary.
At the end of the game I will step back and say, "Wow, I've really worked through how these kinds of issues can affect someone and be addressed. I understand people dealing with them better." (Or maybe even...."I understand myself better.") That seems broader than the single-character understanding, but less abstract than the Narrativist one you mention. Or is it just a different way of phrasing the Narrativist one?
I want to extrapolate/intuit, rather than abstract. Is that a difference that has any place here?
I do enjoy feeling I really understand a character who is different from myself, but that leaves out the whole development portion which is really what I find most satisfying all in all.
Can you explain more what 'opportunities to make a premise statement' really means? If I need to go back and reread some of the articles, feel free to point me -- I wasn't able to read them all thoroughly.
no subject
That is entirely a different phrasing.
Now I have some questions for you.
What sort of things, if anything, should be done during prep to create this kind of outcome of play? Whose responsibility is it to handle each of those (yourself, the GM, other players)?
What sort of things, if anything, should be done during play to create this kind of outcome? Whose responsibility..?
If this sort of outcome does not come out of play, whose fault is it? Anyone's?
What is required for you, personally, to consider a game (or game session) "a failure?" A success?
yrs--
--Ben
PS
I want to extrapolate/intuit, rather than abstract. Is that a difference that has any place here?
Another difference in phrasing, I'm afraid.
Can you explain more what 'opportunities to make a premise statement' really means? If I need to go back and reread some of the articles, feel free to point me -- I wasn't able to read them all thoroughly.
Check out the beginning of the Narrativism essay, the section under the Story Now header is a good place to start, although the section titled "story" above it is also useful.
no subject
You haven't answered my questions below. Still want to play?
What sort of things, if anything, should be done during prep to create this kind of outcome of play? Whose responsibility is it to handle each of those (yourself, the GM, other players)?
What sort of things, if anything, should be done during play to create this kind of outcome? Whose responsibility..?
If this sort of outcome does not come out of play, whose fault is it? Anyone's?
What is required for you, personally, to consider a game (or game session) "a failure?" A success?
yrs--
--Ben
no subject
I want it to be entirely based on what the character would do. In recent years I have more often taken into account outside factors, and come grudgingly to believe that sometimes it is good to do so. Sometimes there are things I think a character would do that I can't bring myself to do, and then I have to rationalize to myself reasons why the character would do it my way instead. I'm much happier when I make decisions based thoroughly on what the character would do, esp. when I can react without stepping outside the role to consider it.
Imagine a situation where your character could, reasonably, choose to go off and be a monk...
If I still wanted to play that character in the game (which I probably would; I have a damned hard time letting go of my characters), I would choose to stay, and rationalize an IC decision for same.
the PC group will be vastly weakened...
Is it a problem that the PC group will be weakened? Presume so, and that this will make the other players unhappy/stop them from accomplishing things they really want to do/etc. If I knew this, I would probably try to get that reflected IC in the game, and use that to drive my character to the other decision. If my character cares about the other characters, perhaps them asking for help will be enough. If I am really torn, because I cannot rationalize my character far enough from their current direction to keep the game fun for other people, I may ask the GM for help giving me an impetus to change my character's direction. I don't feel I can simply change my character's mind with no trigger: why would they suddenly feel different? Nor do I feel I alone can make up things happening off stage to have major effects on my character: it feels false or unacceptably unreal.
if you stay with the group for one more session, you will run into your long-lost father...
I would rather not know this and have it be a factor (esp. because if something would have a certain effect on a character partly because of being a surprise, I would much rather have it actually be a surprise). But I do like seeing character-relevant issues addressed, and would almost certainly take that as 'find some excuse to stick around another session, even if I don't change my decision'.
no subject
In practice, how often do you do this? Just curious.
yrs--
--Ben
no subject